Parts of the CBOK that Schweser did not Cover Well

For those of you who have already taken the Level I Exam: Are there any parts of the CBOK that you think Schweser Notes did not cover well or in enough depth? I’ve heard that Ethics may be one of those areas. I have both Schweser Notes and the CFA Curriculum and am trying to figure out when to use each. Any other input would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Do ethics from CFA books, not Schweser. Doing the rest from Schweser is fine. Though for Econ, it might help looking up some terms online while studying from Schweser. Thats how I did my studying. HTH

I actually thought schweser was pretty good for everything as long as you do enough questions from the question bank…Personally I set it up so the answer would automatically pop up after getting it wrong and found that there was some pretty good explanations that would bridge the gap in some areas (particularly in ethics)

four accounting models. they weren’t in schweser books.

I thought the alternative investments section in the CFAI material was better. Those should be easy points, and I thought that CFAI had some depth there that made things a bit easier to remember. Schweser just kid of listed them, which is fine, but I wasn’t down with trying to memorize that much material.

Yes…the parts I missed :slight_smile: Since I used Schweser exclusively! In my opinion, the CFA exam used some wording that must have been specific to CFAI materials (board takeover defense from staggered terms, etc). I would recommend reading through the CFAI materials once, do the questions, then begin studying Schweser materials thoroughly, then use the CFAI materials for additional clarification on any weak points which may be exposed while using Schweser.

askajan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I would recommend reading > through the CFAI materials once, do the questions, > then begin studying Schweser materials thoroughly, > then use the CFAI materials for additional > clarification on any weak points which may be > exposed while using Schweser. if you have 6+ months to study that is.

hmm…good point :slight_smile: I’m not taking the exam until December 2008. New plan…read Schweser and pray.

I would advise try to do all the examples & problems from CFAI books after completing a reading from Scheweser. Anything you don’t understand from Schweser, try to read it from CFAI book. Just my $0.02.

Thanks for all of the input thus far. It has been really helpful.

90% of the material is better explained in the CFAI books. However if you have a background in any of the topics then Schweser is definitely good enough. If you have the time do the readings simultaneously from both books. I found that to be most helpful. CFAI gives you a detailed explanation and then Schweser packages up a concise version.

Ethics is the only part of the CFAI books that I looked at. I was suprised at how very (almost exact) a number of the test questions were to sample / example questions in the text. Although I feel Schweser did a very good job of teaching me the material (how to do hypothesis testing, definitions, etc.) I think that you would be greatly served by working through the example problems in the CFAI text. *edit - I guess what I am trying to say is that, IMO, the way Schweser presented practice problems did not reflect the way CFAI tested them. That would be my biggest complaint.